Golf clubs in the rough as membership stays below par

By Leesha McKenny

THEIR greens and fairways dot Sydney's suburbs from the coastline to the west but many golf courses are struggling to stay in the long game.

More and more men from double income households are staying away from six-hour games in favour of family time or alternatives such as cycling, clubs say.

Under stress ... Bardwell Valley Golf Club hasn't turned a profit in five years, partly because of the increasing number of players moving to quicker sports.Credit:Quentin Jones

According to figures from the Australian Sports Commission, participation in golf dropped 5 per cent to 1.2 million between 2001 and 2010 - part of a consistent downward trend since 1998, the year Greg Norman lost the sport's top spot.

While private clubs continue to prosper, small public access clubs such as Bardwell Valley Golf Club in south-west Sydney haven't turned a profit in five years. New Brighton Golf Club, a 20-minute drive away in Moorebank, hasn't had one in a decade.

Advertisement

The club's general manager, Andrew Terry, said there were six courses nearby and too few golfers to support them.

Faced with declining members and revenue, Mr Terry said the club was preparing to begin work on a joint venture to develop and sell 300 houses on nine of its 18 holes and move some of the course to the other side of the M5.

''We're very fortunate in the sense that we've got additional land where we can do that,'' he said. ''But if we had not owned the land, New Brighton probably would have only had a number of years left in operation.''

Less than 20 kilometres away at Strathfield Golf Club, the board has told members it is also considering asset sales to preserve its long-term viability. The Herald revealed this week that the club is in talks with neighbouring Rookwood Cemetery about the prospect of sharing its fairways with burial plots.

''You've just got to investigate things, you'd be silly to ignore that the golf world's changing,'' said its general manager, Neil Hardy.

He said the club was one of the few that made a profit last year. A recent club bulletin said it had 250 fewer members than last year, which ''represents conservatively over $300,000 shortfall in our budgeted income''.

The Bardwell Valley general manager, Will Steinhauer, said people were moving away from memberships towards social golf, a less frequent and cheaper style of the game.

''If you lose 10 members at $1000 a member, you're already behind the eight ball,'' he said.

''Unless there's a reshape in business, there's not a great long-term future because you can't continue to post losses.''

Frances Crampton, of Golf Australia, said shorter options than the traditional 18 holes were being developed at many Australian clubs to attract the elusive and time-poor 25 to 45 demographic.

Although 450,000 people were members of a golf club - 59 per cent of them over 55 - about 700,000 people still played golf outside the club system, she said.

''Our focus is to try and keep some stability, rather than having any further decline, and that's why we're introducing other programs.''

The president of Golf Management Australia, David Burton, said many Sydney clubs that once had waiting lists now had to try to differentiate themselves from nearby courses, often by turning to marketing for the first time.